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Contents

Id quod volo: The Erotic Grace of the Second Week

Robert R. Marsh

During the Second Week of the Exercises, we are called to grow in the love of Christ-it is only on this basis that good discernments about discipleship can be made. Rob Marsh uncovers some erotic elements in the Ignatian process, and offers directors of the Exercises some provocative suggestions about love.

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Pierre Favre and the Experience of Salvation

Michel de Certeau

Michel de Certeau (1925-1986) began his distinguished academic career with studies of two great French-speaking Jesuit figures in the history of spirituality: Jean-Joseph Surin (1600-1665) and Pierre Favre (1506-1540). To mark Favre’s centenary, we publish in English this classic, eloquent article which brings out the relational warmth of Favre’s spiritual personality.

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Ignatian Spirituality and Positive Psychology

Phyllis Zagano and C. Kevin Gillespie

Classically, psychology has often focused on how people’s lives are going wrong; by contrast, Positive Psychology, an approach developed in the last decade, aims to build on what is going well in our lives. A theologian and a Jesuit psychologist explore the convergences between this new psychological approach and Ignatian spirituality.

Marital Spirituality: A Paradigm Shift

Thomas Knieps-Port le Roi

Married people today are discovering and claiming a genuine spirituality at the heart of their relationships. As they do so, they are inaugurating a quite new way of understanding spirituality.

That They May Be One: An Interchurch Marriage

Ruth Reardon

Ruth and Martin Reardon were founder members of the Association of Interchurch Families. Ruth here writes of how she and Martin met and fell in love, and of how a genuine interchurch marriage became possible during the Conciliar period.

Kierkegaard the Celibate

Thomas G. Casey

Celibacy should not be a state of mere singleness, but rather a rich form of relatedness to God and to God’s people. Tom Casey explores what celibacy meant for Søren Kierkegaard, the noted Danish philosopher.

Cities and Human Community: Spirituality and the Urban

Philip Sheldrake

Human life is becoming increasingly urban, a point with profound spiritual implications. What is the Christian vision of the good city? What makes for enriching human relationships and the fulfilment of authentic desire in the circumstances of modern urban life?

Prayer and Ecology

André Louf

A distinguished French Cistercian reflects on the deep connections between the life of prayer and an appreciation of God’s gifts in nature and creation.

Animals as Grace: On Being an Animal Liturgist

Andrew Linzey

It is a commonplace to think of spirituality as bound up with human relationships, and also with creation as a whole. But what of other created beings such as animals? A leading writer in the field of animal theology explores the question of animals and Christian liturgy.

From the Foreword

Throughout 2006, the Ignatian family has been marking the 450th anniversary
of Ignatius’ death, and also the fifth centenary of the births of his first two
companions, Pierre Favre (1506-1546) and Francis Xavier (1506-1552). In some
ways, the first three issues of The Way this year have echoed the special gifts
of these three figures in turn. An issue on ‘Directing the Imagination’ in
January evoked the remarkable sensitivity of Pierre Favre as a spiritual
director; ‘Ignatian Experimenting’ in April was centred on Ignatius’ quite
specific programme of formation for ministry; and ‘Exploring Difference’ in July
took up the missionary thrust of Christianity towards new frontiers, as
exemplified by the remarkable journeys of Francis Xavier. But the celebrations
were always intended to recall not simply these three remarkable personalities
in their own right, but also the fact that their charisms and gifts grew out of
a powerful mutuality between them. Their spiritual genius was nurtured in
relationship. Hence The Way’s principal celebration of the jubilee comes
in this present Special Number: Relationships in God

This issue celebrates Favre personally by making available a classic
introduction to his work written by the noted French Jesuit intellectual Michel
de Certeau. More generally, it looks at different ways in which relationships
and spirituality enrich each other. Robert Marsh points us to an ‘erotic’ grace
even in the Ignatian Second Week; Thomas Knieps-Port le Roi and Ruth Reardon
both look at spirituality and marriage; Thomas Casey explores how Søren
Kierkegaard lived out a vocation to loving celibacy. Other pieces look at how
Ignatian spirituality might interact with one modern psychological approach to
relational growth known as Positive Psychology, and at relationships in the
modern city. Finally we consider a set of relationships that are important and
that arguably the Christian tradition has neglected: our relationships with the
world of nature and with the animal kingdom.

To speak of relationships in the spiritual life is not uncontroversial. Favre
and the first Jesuits lived at a time when intercession in the Christian life
was being radically called into question. And surely the Reformers had a point:
Catholic talk of the saints can easily slide over into the manipulative or the
superstitious. Yet there must be a fundamental rightness in how Favre’s prayer
is nourished by memories of human goodness. If God has called the whole creation
into being, if God’s purpose is being worked out in all that God has made, then
the path to God must of its very nature draw us into ever more intense
communion.